Two candidates who will appear on the ballot for the special election in Congressional District 7 won’t be part of Tuesday’s televised debate.
Eduardo Quintana, of Tucson, is the Green Party candidate,
and Richard Grayson, of Apache Junction, is the No Labels candidate. Neither
one of them got 1% of the total votes cast in the July 15 primary election.
Under a rule adopted by the debate hosts, the Arizona Media
Association and the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, that means
they are not invited. The two candidates who won their primaries and did reach
that threshold were Democrat Adelita Grijalva and Republican Dan Butierez.
They’ll debate at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, at Arizona Public Media. It will be
broadcast live on Arizona Public Media and possibly other stations, and the
public is not invited to attend live. Quintana said he considers the rule
“unfair,” noting that one percent of the primary vote is “more than all of our
registered voters.”
Quintana is a Raytheon retiree and environmental activist
who ran for U.S. Senate as the Green Party’s candidate in 2024. “The main
reason I’m running is because of the Palestinian question,” Quintana said. “Our
country is carrying out an illegal genocide with Israel.” “I want to use this
campaign to bring that issue to the fore, as well as other issues that are
important to us,” he said.
The Green Party’s slogan, he noted, is “People, planet,
peace.” Beyond wanting the United States to cut off aid to Israel, Quintana
said, he supports healthcare-for-all and a Green New Deal.
Grayson’s candidacy is a little — let’s say a lot — less
earnest. He’s a perennial candidate who has the distinction of having run in
states across the country. This time, he ran in part to tweak the No Labels
party. Last year, the party won a judicial order preventing him and others from
running as primary candidates under the No Labels banner. This year, the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, opening the door for
Grayson and others to pursue the party’s nomination.
He barely won it: One voter in Cochise County wrote him in,
the only valid vote for a No Labels candidate in the primary. Grayson’s sincere
political beliefs more or less align with the Democratic Party, he said, and he
expects Grijalva to win the race and replace her father, Raul Grijalva, who
died March 13. “It’s fun to be on the ballot. This is a hobby. I’m an old man,”
Grayson said. “If anyone wants to vote for me, I assume it will be a mistake or
they hate the other candidates on the ballot, or they’re mentally ill.”
No comments:
Post a Comment